Uddhav Thackeray rebukes Girish Mahajan on CM issue

Mumbai: Reacting sharply to state minister Girish Mahajan's statement that the next chief minister will be from the Bhaaratiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said that no one should poke their nose into this issue.

Mr Thackeray added that his party had entered into an alliance with the BJP based on mutual understanding between him, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and BJP chief Amit Shah.

The Sena chief was in Aurangabad to review the crop insurance centre set up by his party to help farmers.

Mr Thackeray said that his party was formed to serve Maharashtra's farmers.

Despite being in the government, the Sena acted like the Opposition, he said, adding that his party was only the common man’s voice.

Mr Thackeray said that a road map should be prepared to reach a state of “debt free” instead of loan waiver. He said that if needed, the Sena would take the farmers to the chief minister.

Attacking the government for its failures, the Sena chief said that various schemes had not reached the farmers and that the party would respond in the language one understood.

Addressing the farmers in Gangapur taluka, Mr Thackeray said that his party would protest banks and insurance companies that duped and harassed farmers seeking loans and offices of such unscrupulous institutions in Mumbai would be closed if they harassed the farmers.

The Sena chief pinned the blame for the benefits of schemes not reaching the ultimate beneficiaries aka farmers on middlemen.

The Sena was always behind the farmers when they were in distress. Even after the polls were over, the party could not sit peacefully, he said.

Mr Thackeray said that they could not leave those who had given them power on edge. Else, the Sena’s situation would become like that of the Opposition, he said.

Shiv Sena prescribes Kapalbhati for Opposition to gain energy

The Shiv Sena has suggested that the Congress and other Opposition parties do “Kapalbhati” for the next five years.

The party in the editorial of its mouthpiece Saamna Saturday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated that by doing yoga, poverty would be eradicated.

“If the Opposition does Kapalbhati, will energy be generated in them?” the editorial asked.

The Sena said that there were various types of Yoga, but “Rajyoga” was very important and real.

Mr Modi had attained Rajyoga and therefore one would have to accept the relationship between yoga and power, the editorial noted.

The editorial said that if there was no Rajyoga, merely by laying down mats in the garden and performing the inhaling and exhaling exercise, nothing would be achieved.

Hence, the Sena advised members of the Opposition benches to do “Jhapaki yog” (power naps) or aaram yog (relaxation).

Slamming Congress president Rahul Gandhi for using his mobile in Parliament, the editorial said that while President Ram Nath Kovind was delivering his speech,

Mr Gandhi had been spotted doing mobile yoga (checking his mobile). This might be the result of not having Rajyoga, it said.